Japanese Researchers Find High-performance and Environmentally Friendly Thermoelectric Mineral

Copyright AIST Geological Museum

A group of Japanese researchers from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), and RIKEN announced on February 15, 2013, that they had discovered that a naturally occurring mineral called "tetrahedrite" exhibits high thermoelectric conversion efficiency at around 400 degrees Celsius. The finding is expected to pave the way for thermoelectric generation using substances made from common and environmentally friendly elements such as copper and sulfur.

As thermoelectric generation has the potential to make effective use of vast amounts of otherwise-unused waste heat, it is hoped that applications can be found to generate electricity from medium-temperature (300-500 degrees Celsius) waste heat recovered from vehicles and factories. Commercial application of thermoelectric generation has faced a major barrier, however, as well-known promising thermoelectric materials in that temperature range contain large amounts of lead or other toxic elements.

While improving the performance of tetrahedrite, the group will continue to search for and develop other substances having similar structures, with the goal of finding other high-efficiency thermoelectric materials.